Saturday, February 9, 2013

Clickworker--A Review

Clickworker
is another online task work site.You
are paid by the task, not by the hour, different tasks have different rates of
pay which will be noted on the job description.Tasks include: surveys, fact checking, finding addresses, website evaluations
similar to the tasks on Leapforce, writing
content for webpages and editing/reviewing content that other workers
wrote.Compared to what Leapforce
workers can earn, the pay here is low.Clickworker claims that the average clickworker makes around $9/hr.That is lower than Leapforce and I’m not
convinced that you can make that much, there are far more low paying jobs
available than high-paying ones.Granted,
I haven’t completed all the possible assessments yet so I may not be seeing
every type of job that is available, but I am qualified for writing/editing,
the big website evaluation project.

How
Do You Get Started?

Just go
on the website, click on "For Clickworkers" at the top of the page
and register.They will ask just basic information;
no resume or references are required.Once are registered, sign in as a Clickworker and begin by taking some assessments. You must take a few assessments
before you will be given any jobs.First
you will do a language assessment on any languages you speak; native speakers
will have no trouble passing this.Once
you pass the language assessment you can qualify for Author and Editor jobs. Other assessments will appear under your
Assessments tab, which you can take if you are interested.Once you have passed the
assessments, jobs that you qualify for will start to appear on your task
page.To start working, just click on a
job, read the instructions and start working.

Before
you are paid, your work will be evaluated and anything that was
done wrong will be rejected; in some cases you will be allowed to correct your mistakes or
deficiencies and resubmit the job.

My Review:

I
have not been working on this site for very long, mostly because I can make A
LOT more on Leapforce, but I’ve recently worked on a set of tasks called UHRS,
these tasks are similar to those you would find on Leapforce.The interface for these tasks has a very
annoying count-down clock in the upper left on these tasks, so you know you are
being timed even though you are being paid by the task and not by time spent on
it.I have not been given credit for all
of the tasks I’ve completed and I suspect that I am not being paid on the tasks
where I went into “Over-time”.Clickworker does not allow anywhere near the amount of time that
Leapforce does on similar tasks, this may be Clickworker’s way to reject
payment for work but still get the task completed.The more I work on Clickworker tasks the less
I like it.

A
minor annoyance, but since this is a review I’ll mention it; although they are
picky about your punctuation, spelling and word usage in the tasks you complete
for them, Clickworker appears not so concerned about the same issues in the
task instructions on their own site (I’ve found several usage and spelling
mistakes).

Because
of the low pay and the things that annoy me about the site I would only use
Clickworker as a back-up source of income when low on work from other
sources, or when you want something you can do for very short periods while doing
other things.

Next
Topic:My thoughts about managing your
time while working a “regular” job and doing extra work from home.Also I’ll be starting to work on “Mturk”
another task work site and review it in the coming weeks.

8 comments:

I tried Clickworker and it seemed to take me quite a while to earn $30. The instructions for the UHRS tasks seemed to be confusing. Is Leapforce even more complicated than UHRS? I applied for Leapforce back in September and just heard from them today. After reading comments on here and Glassdoor about the extensive Leapforce documentation, I'm a little scared to try it.

Hi Dani, thanks for your question. I agree, Clickworker pay is very low, and their instructions are not well written. I guess you could say that Leapforce work is more complicated, but the instructions are more detailed and Leapforce has training tools and examples available on your rater home page. It is not easy to qualify for Leapforce but I think it is worth a try. It does pay well, so far its the best that I've found online. I'd suggest that you give the qualification test a try, the exam serves partly as training and partly so you can see what is involved and whether it is something you want to do. Good luck with whatever you decide. Let us know how you are doing if you do start working with Leapforce.

Yes, both Clickworker and Leapforce take workers from anywhere in the world. To start with Clickworker go to: http://www.clickworker.com/en/ and create an account, you will have to take some assessment tests first then they will display any jobs that are available on your account page.

Leapforce is more difficult to work for, you will have to apply here: www.leapforceathome.com They will ask you to fill out an application, then take an exam to demonstrate you can learn their guidelines and do the work successfully. See my other posts on Leapforce to get an idea about the job and what to expect from the exam.

Do not work for Clickworker. I signed up about month and half ago. In about 4 weeks, I made roughly $600 doing UHRS work. On my first scheduled payday, they sent me an email saying my account has some suspicion and document of identity is required. I live with my roommate and we both signed up for Clickworker. We share the same PayPal account for Clickworker since my roommate does not have PayPal. I believe it is for that reason Clickworker decides to suspend our accounts. To verify our identity, we had emailed them our bank statements and identification cards. Our earnings was delayed and currently still had not receive anything for the work I have done. I have sent them numerous emails. Reply is slow. At this moment, I am beginning to feel I will not be paid for the dedication and time I spent the last month working. In order to apply for Clickworker, you must provide accurate social security numbers. I do not understand why with such confidential information, that there will be any suspicion the accounts were set up by the same person. It is just bad business ethic to withhold earnings from someone. Together with their poorly set up help support, my advice is do not work for them.There are other companies which offers the same crowdsource works. Appenbutler is one that is much better than Clickworker.

DO NOT WORK FOR CLICKWORKER. Do some research and you see will there are others who is experiencing the same issue regarding payments.

I tried Clickworker, and they closed my account, without explanation, 2 days before the first payment was due. This was (probably) my fault entirely, but they could have closed my account far sooner than they did. This tells me that they were happy to let me earn money for them but, as others have said, then find a reason not to pay out.

I signed up to work on Clickworker a few months ago and I recently received an email from them warning me that my work quality has decreased lately and that they will permanently close my account should this continue. What they fail to realize or admit is that their HitApps have a lot of technical issues (which I report to them) and their guidelines are not very clear. I found this "warning" ridiculous and laughable considering their awfully low wages. Clickworker, do not complain when you pay peanuts!

As a freelance writer, I find these sites to truly be an eye opener as to what's really out there(or not). So much has changed in the landscape of freelancing and the art/business of writing. When the cost of my operating system and internet connection surpasses my hourly wage, I have to evaluate my own time's worth to me(not to some website that "evaluates" my qualifications as a writer by a series of mundane assessments.) The term jumping through hoops comes to mind. Not for me. By the way, I tried clickworker for about a minute. (and it was a minute too long.)

About Me

I'm a library paraprofessional with a Master's Degree in Psychology, researcher, blogger and part-time webpreneur. Working for state government is not as secure as it used to be, so supplemental income is needed. I'm investigating and trying out a number of work-at-home ideas that I'll be discussing in Leaving Low Wages. Because we get stuck from time to time, I've started Action Does It so we can all learn some motivational techniques together.
Your comments are welcome, the more people we have contributing ideas the smarter we all will be.